Re: How to Fix Character Encoding Damaged Text Using Perl?

Since you already know what sequence of encoding and decoding lead to the broken output, the easiest way with Encode::Repair is this:

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

use Encode::Repair qw(repair_encoding);
my $broken = '敒›剕䕇呎';
say repair_encoding($broken, [decode => 'utf-8', encode => 'UTF-16LE']);
__END__
# output:
Re: URGENT

But it also works with learn_recoding:

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;
use Encode::Repair qw(repair_encoding learn_recoding);
binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)';
my $broken = '敒›剕䕇呎';

my $pattern = learn_recoding(
    from    => $broken,
    to      => 'Re: URGENT',
    encodings => ['UTF-8', 'UTF-16LE', 'UTF-16BE'],
);

if ($pattern) {
    say repair_encoding($broken, $pattern);
}

So, what did you try?

(Updated to use pre tags instead of code, because code tags badly break most non-ASCII-chars.

Perl 6 - the future is here, just unevenly distributed

Comment on Re: How to Fix Character Encoding Damaged Text Using Perl?

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Re^2: How to Fix Character Encoding Damaged Text Using Perl? by Jim (Curate) on Jun 15, 2013 at 18:37 UTC
Thank you very much, moritz, for your helpful reply. I greatly appreciate it. So, what did you try? I tried variations of something very similar to your second example using `Encode::Repair::learn_recoding()`. In hindsight, I believe the problem that thwarted my efforts was my inclusion of `use utf8` in the script. Needless to say, I thought I was doing the right thing when, in fact, I was doing exactly the wrong thing. I just tested using Encode::Repair to repair damaged text that has non-ASCII characters in it. 敌馀⁳潧琠⁯韦겜鯥↽ \u654C\uE274\u9980\u2073\u6F67\u7420\u206F\u97E6\uE6A5\uAC9C\u9BE5\u21BD \x4C\x65\x74\xE2\x80\x99\x73\x20\x67\x6F\x20\x74\x6F\x20\xE6\x97\xA5\xE6\x9C\xAC\xE5\x9B\xBD\x21 \u004C\u0065\u0074\u2019\u0073\u0020\u0067\u006F\u0020\u0074\u006F\u0020\u65E5\u672C\u56FD\u0021 Let’s go to 日本国! It works! Here's the script. use v5.16; use Encode::Repair qw( repair_encoding ); while (my $damaged_text = <DATA>) { chomp $damaged_text; my $repaired_text = repair_encoding( $damaged_text, [ decode => 'UTF-8', encode => 'UCS-2LE', ] ); say $repaired_text; } exit 0; __DATA__ 敒›剕䕇呎敌馀⁳潧琠⁯韦겜鯥↽ Brilliantly, this prints… Re: URGENT Let’s go to 日本国! Notice, however, that I had to remove `binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)'`. This version of the script also works. use v5.16; use Encode qw( decode ); use Encode::Repair qw( repair_encoding ); binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)'; while (my $damaged_text = <DATA>) { chomp $damaged_text; my $repaired_text = repair_encoding( $damaged_text, [ decode => 'UTF-8', encode => 'UCS-2LE', ] ); say decode('UTF-8', $repaired_text); } exit 0; __DATA__ 敒›剕䕇呎敌馀⁳潧琠⁯韦겜鯥↽ I can study and study and study the Perl documentation, but I'll never grok the subtleties of Perl's Unicode model. It's simply too profoundly confusing for me. I love your module, moritz! Thanks for it, and for your help here.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re^2: How to Fix Character Encoding Damaged Text Using Perl?
by Jim (Curate) on Jun 15, 2013 at 18:37 UTC

Thank you very much, moritz, for your helpful reply. I greatly appreciate it.

So, what did you try?

I tried variations of something very similar to your second example using Encode::Repair::learn_recoding(). In hindsight, I believe the problem that thwarted my efforts was my inclusion of use utf8 in the script. Needless to say, I thought I was doing the right thing when, in fact, I was doing exactly the wrong thing.

I just tested using Encode::Repair to repair damaged text that has non-ASCII characters in it.

    敌馀⁳潧琠⁯韦겜鯥↽
    \u654C\uE274\u9980\u2073\u6F67\u7420\u206F\u97E6\uE6A5\uAC9C\u9BE5\u21BD
    \x4C\x65\x74\xE2\x80\x99\x73\x20\x67\x6F\x20\x74\x6F\x20\xE6\x97\xA5\xE6\x9C\xAC\xE5\x9B\xBD\x21
    \u004C\u0065\u0074\u2019\u0073\u0020\u0067\u006F\u0020\u0074\u006F\u0020\u65E5\u672C\u56FD\u0021
    Let’s go to 日本国!

It works! Here's the script.

use v5.16;

use Encode::Repair qw( repair_encoding );

while (my $damaged_text = <DATA>) {
    chomp $damaged_text;

    my $repaired_text = repair_encoding(
        $damaged_text, [
            decode => 'UTF-8',
            encode => 'UCS-2LE',
        ]
    );

    say $repaired_text;
}

exit 0;

__DATA__
敒›剕䕇呎
敌馀⁳潧琠⁯韦겜鯥↽

Brilliantly, this prints…

    Re: URGENT
    Let’s go to 日本国!

Notice, however, that I had to remove binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)'. This version of the script also works.

use v5.16;

use Encode qw( decode );
use Encode::Repair qw( repair_encoding );

binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)';

while (my $damaged_text = <DATA>) {
    chomp $damaged_text;

    my $repaired_text = repair_encoding(
        $damaged_text, [
            decode => 'UTF-8',
            encode => 'UCS-2LE',
        ]
    );

    say decode('UTF-8', $repaired_text);
}

exit 0;

__DATA__
敒›剕䕇呎
敌馀⁳潧琠⁯韦겜鯥↽

I can study and study and study the Perl documentation, but I'll never grok the subtleties of Perl's Unicode model. It's simply too profoundly confusing for me.

I love your module, moritz! Thanks for it, and for your help here.

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]